The assignment of effective control over the scope of trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“Office”) under the America Invents Act of 2012 (AIA) has been an area of controversy since implementation of the Act.  In SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, the question of control arose in the context of 35 U.S.C. § 318(a), and whether that provision requires the PTAB to issue a final written decision on all claims challenged by the petitioner in an inter partes review, allowing the scope of the petition to “guide the life of the litigation,” or instead permitted the Board to follow a practice, ostensibly authorized under Office rules, of instituting review as to only some claims challenged in the petition, and denying review as to the remaining claims.¹